O.C. business website aims to lure companies

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The Orange County Business Council has set up a website, LocationOC.com, to tell the world what a great place this is to do business. It is part of an aggressive effort in which the group has dispatched “red teams” to prevent businesses from moving. It comes in the wake of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s effort to lure business away from California.

The portal, launched this week by the Orange County Business Council, seeks to lure companies to the area, stressing local efforts to “cut regulations, reduce fees and streamline processes.”

Take that, Gov. Rick Perry!

The website was in the works before the Texas governor’s highly publicized ad campaign and his California visit aimed at poaching state businesses last month. But the timing of Orange County’s effort highlights the intense competition among regions as the economy recovers from the recession.

“Other states are romancing us,” said Lucy Dunn, president and CEO of the business council.

In the past few years, the council has organized “red teams” of public officials to persuade business owners who are considering a move to remain in Orange County. The efforts include softening rules and cutting costs.

The new website highlights this “culture of collaboration.”

“It’s hard to attract businesses here from outside California,” Dunn acknowledged. “Not because of what Orange County is doing – we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. But for the last decade California has ranked as having the worst business climate in the U.S.”

She said California’s strict regulations and “culture of litigation” make companies leery of investing. “Even long-standing businesses in California are expanding and hiring in other states instead of growing operations here. Once you get started here in California, you generally expand somewhere else.”

Nonetheless, Dunn said: “What attracts businesses despite all that is our great university system, and the California market. With 37 million people, the market is huge. So if you hit it, it is gold.”

The LocationOC website boasts that “With over 42 miles of coastline and great weather, Orange County is often referred to as the ‘California Riviera.’ Orange County is home to world class amusement parks, shopping, entertainment, recreation, dining, open space, arts and culture.”

The site underscores the county’s “growing international trade, business friendly climate, vibrant entrepreneurial spirit.” It notes that Orange County is the sixth-largest county in the nation, with a population of 3 million.

Orange County is not the first to promote itself. Los Angeles has a come-hither site – chooselacounty.com – that boasts: “More than 300 days of sunshine annually” and “Beyond entertainment – 14 thriving industry clusters.” San Diego’s site, sandiegobusiness.org, promotes the county as “regionally focused, globally competitive,” and touts its “more than 80 academic and applied research institutions.”

The portal cites companies that have moved to Orange County since 2009, including several from nearby counties. The list includes Alorica, a call-center operator that transferred its headquarters from Chino to Irvine; Sizzler USA, which relocated from Culver City to Mission Viejo; and Extra Express, a shipping company that moved from Paramount to Brea.

LocationOC links to information on state and local incentives and resources: enterprise zones, foreign trade zones, employee training, business permitting, and business support organizations.

The council, which is funded by more than 300 of the county’s largest employers, works to retain businesses that may be considering a move.

According to council publications, a red team helped reduce an unnamed local manufacturer’s costs by $750,000. A separate effort saved 285 jobs at Meggitt PLC, a defense contractor, which recently consolidated operations in Irvine.

Dunn said a red team, including officials from a sanitation district, Southern California Edison and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, mobilized in an effort to retain a semiconductor company. “We got concessions from the sanitation district and Edison,” Dunn said. However, air quality officials “wouldn’t budge” on greenhouse gas emission rules, which were expected to cost the company $1.3 million, she said.

The company, with 900 high-paying jobs, decided to remain.

Two years ago, the council launched an awards ceremony, “Turning Red Tape into Red Carpet”, for public officials who promote cooperation between agencies and businesses. Among the recipients: the city of Mission Viejo, which has saved residents and companies $500,000 so far by cutting building fees.

All the initiatives add up to a single purpose. As Dunn put it, “We need to sell Orange County.”

Margot Roosevelt covers economic news. She has been a staff reporter at The Orange County Register since 2012. Before that, she was on staff at the Los Angeles Times, covering environmental news. Earlier jobs: Congressional reporter for the Washington Post; foreign and national correspondent for Time Magazine.